Horizon4Aquaculture (online, 2021)

IMPAQT has joined forces with the EU H2020 funded projects GAIN and iFishIENCi to organize a three-day online event and work together in 3 key aspects for sustainable growth of aquaculture: Policy and Regulation, Circularity, and Precision Aquaculture.

15th of June, a session dedicated to discussing policies, practices, and regulations, analyzing gaps and opportunities along the entire value chain of aquaculture production, from pre-production to the consumer market. Check it out here: Horizon4Aquaculture – Policy sessions

22nd of June, the debate focuses on “Progress towards Circular Aquaculture”, bringing together experts in circular economy and aquaculture to share knowledge and views on what circularity means in aquaculture, how it should be addressed and measured, and how it can become part of the business for aquaculture producers. Sessions are available here: Horizon4Aquaculture – Progress towards circular aquaculture

29th of June highlights “Precision Aquaculture in the Blue Economy”, its demands, and its impacts on sustainability, cost-efficiency, and consumer confidence. This session includes a Demo Day to explore the latest innovative technologies developed by GAIN, iFishIENCi and IMPAQT, showing how they contribute to solve problems and optimize aquaculture production. Watch full sessions here: Horizon4Aquaculture – Precision Aquaculture

Aquaculture Europe 2020 (online, 2021)

The Aquaculture Europe event, organized by the European Aquaculture Society, is one of the premier aquaculture events in Europe each year and is a key forum for presenting the latest research, developments, and innovations in the sector. Even if the AE2020 was a little bit different than the past AE event (i.e. online, and occurring in 2021), it was an excellent and professional event, where industry, suppliers, researchers, regulators, and other stakeholders from Europe were participating.

The IMPAQT project was well represented at the event, with much of the work of the project being presented. Several partners showed their work through 10 presentations in different sessions. The IMTA session was chaired by our Coordinator, Frank Kane, who also presented an outline of the work done in the project at the precision aquaculture session. Take a look at the abstracts presented by IMPAQT in the ‘Scientific publications‘ tab.

An overview of the main results and outputs of IMPAQT was also presented at AE2020 through a short video. Watch the video here. IMPAQT also has a ‘stall’ at the e-booth, which served as a dedicated place online to present our work and engage with conference attendees. While the booths were nowhere near as successful as normal face-to-face events, some useful engagement and follow up meetings did come from the e-market.

SETAC Europe 30th Annual Meeting (online, 2020)

In 2020, this annual meeting was held online for the first time. Several posters and oral presentations were available, as well as the possibility of networking.

In general,  it was a successful and exciting experience that brought together more than 1632 environmental scientists and managers from around the world.

IMPAQT partners, LEITAT and DELTARES jointly submitted a Poster where both, the ecosystem services and life cycle approaches and their application in IMPAQT was presented.

You can check all the abstracts presented here and read more about this meeting here.

International Maritime Day ‘Lá Mara’ (online, 2020)

Lá Mara 2020 is a global marine webinar, organised by Údarás na Gaeltachta as part of World Maritime Day.

The international marine experts shared their experience and knowledge on a range of trending issues relating to the importance of innovation and sustainability in the marine sector.

Here, the Marine Institute shared IMPAQT’s work through a video presentation and had a follow-up discussion regarding IMTA and the challenges to the progression of IMTA.

Watch the full webinar here.

Aquaculture Europe (Germany, 2019)

Aquaculture Europe 2019 was a key dissemination event for IMPAQT. Organized in Berlin, more than 2700 actors from academic, industry, and policy fields attended. Several partners participated in presenting the project and posters, and they constantly interacted with stakeholders visiting IMPAQT’s booth at the trade event for three days. In this exhibition stand, ARGANS, WINGS,  Marine Institute, and AUA gave stakeholders the opportunity to find out more about the IMPAQT dashboard functionalities.

This presentation interested many visitors, and interesting discussions have been generated, such as sensors maintenance for offshore aquaculture, or questions about Process Analytical Technology and its implementation in the aquaculture industry. Stakeholders also showed interest in the system price and facilitated their contact data to keep in touch with the IMPAQT team. Several posters were also available and many IMPAQT flyers have been distributed.

AUA informed the audience about the multi-trophic aquaculture systems, the biofouling phenomenon in aquaculture, the classic methods deployed in food quality and safety evaluation, and how sensor techniques and analytic methods for rapid and accurate fish and seafood quality and safety assessment are implemented in the project. The use of sensors was presented through a video demonstration, and the pipeline of data analysis and food quality assessment was available in a PPT format and a photo book. The experimental procedures followed to evaluate biofilm and biofouling development on water monitoring sensors’ materials in laboratory conditions were also presented. A private company exhibited interest in future collaboration in the field of biofouling evaluation on aquaculture devices.

MI, SAMS, Tyndall, AUA, and ARGANS participated in several sessions of AE2019. MI presented IMTA and Smarter Monitoring For Greener Aquaculture, and a poster on IMPAQT work. SAMS held an oral presentation in the Molluscs session regarding mussel cultivation and genetics. AUA presented two posters: one regarding objectives and work of Task 2.6 (Control of Biofouling), and the other about the experiments already performed at this point and results from their studies.

In general, IMPAQT team received continuous interest throughout the sessions, attracting attendees with a data science but also ecology background/focus. Very positive feedback and wide interest in the IMPAQT concept were received.

Read more about Aquaculture Europe 2019 here or take a look at the summary report here.

XVII Spanish Aquaculture Congress (Spain, 2019)

LEITAT attended the XVII Spanish Aquaculture Congress between the 7^th and 10^th of May in Cartagena (Murcia, Spain). The event presented the latest scientific innovations in aquaculture aligned with the strategy of Blue Growth.

The 4 days congress covered sessions in circular economy, 4.0 aquaculture, nutrition, and food, reproduction, genetics, economics and production, plant engineering, instrumentation, and processes, as well as round-tables discussions.

Here, IMPAQT’s general objectives and expected outcomes were introduced by LEITAT, and this oral presentation had a very good uptake among participants. As a general comment, participants stressed the importance of involving the whole value chain actors in the implementation of projects to increase their impact.

You can download the IMPAQT presentation here or read more about this congress here.

Marine Institute Research Symposium (Ireland, 2019)

The Marine Institute held the Research Symposium, where many interesting pieces of research were presented, and seventy researchers from across the Institute, gathered to present their work, brainstorm, and identify ways to work better together.

Several EU-funded projects were presented, and IMPAQT was one of them. IMPAQT partners presented their research to colleagues within the MI, and there was much discussion between colleagues on IMTA and its potential for aquaculture in the future.

Read more about this event here.

Farming Seaweed in Ireland Workshop (Ireland, 2019)

Farming Seaweed in Ireland workshop, hosted by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), Ireland’s seafood development agency, was held in response to a growing interest in farming seaweed and in producing seaweed products in Ireland.

Here, the Marine Institute presented “Seaweed Research at Lehanagh Pool”, where the IMTA work in the IMPAQT project is included as a key project for the development of seaweed aquaculture techniques and impacts, and for the development and testing of the intelligent management system. Partners from Tyndall have also presented IMPAQT at this workshop.

Over 70 industry representatives including seaweed producers, regulators, and processors attended this one-day workshop.

Read more about it here.

MikroBioKosmos (Grece, 2019)

The objective of MikroBioKosmos is to promote research in Environmental Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Microbial Biotechnology with the creation of appropriate conditions for researchers communication.

Our partners from the Agricultural University of  Athens (AUA) presented an abstract and poster at the 8th Symposium of the Hellenic Scientific Society of MikroBioKosmos, which aims to attract high-quality research produced by the researchers of Greece.

You can find IMPAQT abstract in the MikrobioKosmos abstract book (p. 134), focused on “Biofilm formation on stainless steel surfaces in a marine Recirculated Aquaculture System” (Schoina, E., Kanapitsas, A., Miliou, H., & Nychas, G-J., 2019).

Copernicus Marine Services (Greece, 2019)

ARGANS presented his expertise and services based on Earth Observation (satellite) for aquaculture at the Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS).

The IMPAQT objectives and outcomes were presented to an audience of 30-50 relevant actors in the sector: policy-makers, researchers, as well as industry actors.

The IMPAQT presentation was very well received and facilitated many exchanges after the presentation and during workshop breaks. Good contacts were initiated, such as with CNC- France.

Read more about Copernicus Marine Services here.

Bradán Salmon Growing Conference  (Ireland, 2018)

Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM, Ireland’s Seafood Development Agency) hosted this conference, where twenty-five separate presentations from national and international experts covered the latest research and technological developments within the sector.

At this two-day conference on the scientific developments within the salmon farming industry, the IMPAQT project was represented by the Marine Institute and Tyndall to more than 100 Irish aquaculture industry actors, regulators, and interested stakeholders. This presentation generated wide interest and attendees enquired about the work and results of the project.

Read more about this conference here.

ETSI IoT Week (France, 2018)

From 23 to 26 October 2018, EGM and WINGS presented the first investigations of IMPAQT data aggregation service for Aquaculture in ETSI IoT Week and oneM2M showcase.

Wireless sensors (LoRaWAN and . Zigbee) were connected to a oneM2M based data aggregator in charge of managing sensors heterogeneity, providing device management and data stream to be sent to a backend. This back-end is in charge of collecting information from other data sources as well as connecting analytic functions to a management system. This demonstration showcased that different applications and data sources can connect together, thanks to the IMPAQT data aggregation service.